About me:

English not a strong point, aged 8.It took me too long to work out how old I would be - proof of a well spent education in maths."A lovely Macdonalds"

Anatomy schma-natomy.Ruining body proportion in art since 2005 and "How to draw Manga for Beginners". Kawaii.

Humble Beginnings

I will spare you the pain of some of my potato body stick arm people drawings and hop straight past that age...

My first real memories of art and creativity stem from my ever-crazy and ever-supportive parents. Graphic designer for a father and master of the arts-n-crafts mother; it was bound to happen. Then from my grandparents – so many rainy afternoons of card making – I think I was a reasonably calm kid. I distinctly remember these things from childhood art:

1. Practise drawings on the back of misprinted paper. Save that environment.

2. Caravan holidays and that empty ice cream tub full of felt tips that never seemed to work and goddamnit – why was there not a skin colour?!

5. The discovery of manga at around age 12 and consequential downfall of all proportional human anatomy drawing skills

6. Ditching PE to do art. Not sorry.

Photography and film came slightly later through varying modes of technology. I will never forget what I learnt from all those amateur films and blurry snaps. Plus the countless hours spent on editing programmes starting with Paint and making it to the once scary vast plains of Adobe Photoshop. I think the first thing I drew on Adobe Illustrator was a flower. And it was terrible.

Read all the books on it you want to and watch as many YouTube tutorials – you can’t beat putting a paintbrush to paper or waiting just long enough peering down a lens until the sun hits the spot just perfectly.

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.

Ray Bradbury

Taken on a Sony Ericsson K800i:There are no judgements here.

Practice makes perfect!

I doodle on everything. Give me a pen and paper and it will be decorated whether it really “should” be or not. I am the 23 year old that has a face of pure glee when there are crayons in a restaurant and the waitress has decided not to judge me. If I’ve made a “to-do list” and there isn’t a doodle near it- something is wrong and I should probably be asleep or on holiday.

My school planners had personalised vinyl cut out makeovers and intensely detailed drawings inside – this thought just brought back a memory of me taking commissions in year 7 to design peoples planners – I think I charged a pound. Dragons den eat ya heart out.

Math’s wasn’t my cup of tea – I apologise Mr West now that you had to tell my parents I’d “probably be better at math’s if I spent less time drawing”.

I had these A5 black sketchbooks that went everywhere with me and I slowly changed medium from pencil sketch to crayons to watercolour and I filled about 20 of them until I moved onto bigger books. Its nice to see the progress even though I still have so far to go.

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."

Scott Adams.

Why have you even stumbled onto this page. For such treasures as this!? WHY?!

The words “can you draw me a….” fill my heart with happiness and my mind with millions of ideas and the moment someone describes their vision I feel honoured to be making it some kind of reality. A blank canvas makes my fingers itch – the blank canvas is not necessarily always a canvas- skin, notebooks, walls, furniture, clothes…

Combinations & ExperienceAs theatre crept into my veins and made me into the playhouse creature I claim to be these days I found ways to combine my two main focuses in the form of set design. Backstage is just as creative as on the stage under the lights and I honestly love both. Sitting on a plank of wood for hours painting a pharaoh’s face or distressing a giant car in a warehouse whilst it’s subzero outside? Yeah, go on then - in the name of theatre.

I guess at the moment it's about finding the best way to combine things I enjoy doing together so that it's not "too many fingers in too many paint pots".